Maybe I'm so loud because...

First, I've noticed that Western parents are extremely anxious about their children's self-esteem. They worry about how their children will feel if they fail at something, and they constantly try to reassure their children about how good they are notwithstanding a mediocre performance on a test or at a recital. In other words, Western parents are concerned about their children's psyches. Chinese parents aren't. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.

This excerpt closely reminds me of the parenting style that I have been brought up with. My mom had raised me. My mom has raised me to be strong and in some ways, insensitive. In my house if you don’t have a thick skin you will begin to feel extremely insecure and saddened. My mom and I are two people who are very brash and we speak our minds and sometimes we can say hurtful things. People don’t realize that it has a lot to do with the way that she raised me, she raised me in order to not car what others say to me and to make the assumption that others feel the same.

    When I fail at something my mom expects me to bounce right back from it, and I know that it has made me a better and more resilient person in the end. In my family, tough love is a normalcy, and I’m going to do the same with my children. Tough love is an effective way to raise strong children who will be able to handle the realities of the world and to know that people will not always sugar-coat things for you. If children are brought up in an environment where they are given tough love they are better able to respond to the real world.

Chapter 11

Rahni Johnson, Regina Moore
Mr. Sutherland
Period 5 English 10
February 8, 2011

Animal Farm: Chapter 11

One day Moses stumbled upon a young lamb named Lammie who was being terrorized by a group of dogs. The dogs had Lammie surrounded and the situation causing instant silence due to his elderly and stoic presence; they watched as he started to speak and as Lammie ran away in tears.  Moses found this to be the perfect opportunity to get the dogs to help him preach the word of the Sugar Cane Mountain God.

“Okay listen up young ones, I had a dream, like the one Major had way before your time. In this dream the sugar Cane Mountain God came to me, he spoke to me saying he chose me to be his prophet. A prophet needs his followers, he needs right hand men. I am coming to you asking you on behalf on the Sugar Cane Mountain god to follow him, if you want to go to the sugary after life then come join me in converting people. I am your ticket into the glorious after life. So which road shall you choose? Will you go on the road that leads you to a burning everlasting furnace? Or will you choose the road that will take you to the wonderful, bright, always happy eternity?”

    He then walks away, not even a minute has gone by before the dogs take one glance at each other and start to run over to Moses and say, “Yes we want to join you, just tell us what we need to do in order to get to that wonderful place.” He turns slowly with a smile on his face and breaks down to the dogs what he wants them to do. in order to get the followers that will get him into the promise land for animals. They began to walk back to the farm’s barn house to get their rest for the following day where they would put their plan into action.
    They awoke the next day, prepared for what they knew lay ahead of them. They immediately started to preach the word of the Sugar Cane Gods to all the animals that were in earshot of their voices. The news spread like wild fire. They had something to believe in. When
the young animals heard Moses speak they immediately go over to him in respect of him because he is an elder. They gathered around Moses and his minions: the pack of dogs. No one needed to know what he was about to say because he had been saying it for so long. As soon as he started talking about how their lives could be they became hooked on every word that came out of his mouth. even without the intimidation from the that stood behind him and by his side. He had been talking for about ten minutes when the Napoleon and his minions: the pigs and the  humans came out of the house walking on their two legs towards them. Once they got the Moses, his minions and the other animals surrounding him,  they started to trash talk what Moses had to say. It started with Napoleon, “Do not believe him, what he says is all lies, he is old and is losing his mind.”  And after Napoleon said that, the trouble began to happen. Napoleons minions began to back him up which made the dogs react because they were ganging up on the prophet, so they began to bark and before a person could blink Moses sliced the neck of Napoleon and a by standing human.
    Everyone stood by in shock, not knowing what to make of what they just saw. And that is when Moses began to speak again, “This young ones, is an example of what shall happen to you if you do not choose to walk on the path of sugar, but instead choose to walk on the path to destruction.  Instead of me doing this to you, you will feel the wrath of the Sugar God and that will not be a pretty sight.” When he was done speaking all the animals were not even focusing on the dead bodies anymore because they wanted to know what they had to do in order to get to this magical place in the afterlife. By this time all the pigs led by the humans had gone into the house with fear circulating through the blood in their bodies. When Moses knew he had the full attention of the animals and he knew the pigs and the humans were in the house, he told the new followers that only believers could get into Sugar Cane Mountain, and because the pigs and the humans were not believers, something had to be done about them. With the help of the young minded animals they devised a plan to kill off the pigs and the humans, except for one who said he believed and wanted to go to the land of paradise. Moses gathered the dogs is a small secluded area of the farm and advised them of his plan to kill off the animals, it took the dogs almost no convincing to do so, Moses was their prophet and they truly believed that his word was that of the Sugar Cane Mountain Gods. The dogs were ordered to organize in the middle of the night and attack the humans and pigs as they slept but their plan did not go as smoothly as they had thought it would, because the pig who was supposedly a believer overheard what the dogs and Moses were speaking about. He informed the other pigs and humans, they prepared for war. As darkness swept the sky, the pigs and humans went to sleep inside the house feeling prepared and knowing that they would have the upper hand on the fight.
    Justin which was Napoleons right hand man was instinctively put in charge because napoleon was killed. The fight was over before it really started,  Before the crack of dawn the humans and the pigs crept out of the house with their at their sides ready for battle. They made it to the barn when out of nowhere one of the dogs saw them and came charging at them with his hairs sticking up, his ears pointed and his sharp teeth out. He looked as if he was about to have dinner when one of the pigs stuck up the gun and shot the dog in his shoulder and watched as he fell at his feet. The gun shot woke up the whole barn and the only animals to do anything were the dogs and Moses. When the Mr Pilkington and Justin spotted Moses coming towards them they both simultaneously yelled out, “FIRE!” and at that key everyone fired at Moses. When all the gun smoke cleared up they saw Moses laying on the ground with multiple gun wounds spread throughout his body. At the sight of this all the animals came out cheering and thanking the pigs and the humans. Justin stood over Moses and said, “This is a glorious day we shall remember, this is the day when the great Moses the prophet was killed.”

In Hell

    When Moses awoke he felt his body get hot, he started to sweat and as he looked around all he saw was fire, smoke and death. He did not know where he was until he looked up to the “sky” and he saw Sugar Cane Mountain. But that was all he could do was see it, he would never be able to touch it because he was in hell.

POPULATION CONTROL...DUNNNNN DUNNN DUUUUUUUN!

         The population explosion in the last one hundred years is a well-documented, and well-examined subject matter. All sorts of agencies have devoted time and resources to studying, problematizing, and strategizing in order to deal with the threat of overpopulation. Diverse groups, including the United Nations, have developed plans to encourage population control and decreased fertility rates. However, I will say that population control in Third World nations have become an essential component of public policy, and have taken on many forms around the world. However, it seems possible that we are all jumping the gun. What if the population explosion is a self-correcting problem? There is some evidence that global fertility rates are naturally declining, even in areas without family planning and population control.  With fertility and death rates increasing a dropping out of control it is extremely hard to grasp many of the concepts of population control, which is why it is a subject that is not often touched upon.

Population control is such a touchy topic with such a confusing web of answers. When going over answers as to how the population should be controlled it was so...confusing! There is such a fine line between trying to dwindle down the population and violating the rights of the people. After thinking long and hard about population control I think that the only plausible solution is promoting sex Ed and birth control.

There are many other ways to put a cap on our rapidly growing population, but none that can really be done while still being one hundred percent fair and still guaranteeing the rights of the people.

Animal Farm

Power is the easiest thing to abuse. It is the complete control over another individual and it is up to the person who holds the power to decide what they want to do with it. When there are issues of power involved there is often two sides that the situation can be looked at; either the side of the oppressor or the side of the oppressed. There have definitely been situations in the media and in history where there is an aimless need for people in power to inflict harm upon the powerless.

One big question when studying these situations is what causes the people in power to have that power. Sometimes its money, religion, or cultural background. In the case of the book Animal Farm the pigs were able to have power because Old Major was the first person to speak of revolt and defiance against the humans. The pigs might not have a legitimate reason to have power over the rest of the animals but they do because the original leader was "one of them." It allows the pigs to claim themselves as superiors without any real means to do so.

Whenever a group or individual is in power and is not qualified to be there is usually some type of abuse of power going on. Power should only be given to those who have rightfully owned it, or it almost always gets abused.

Hahahahahahaaaaaaaa I Had To..

One day Gumby decided to go to a magical place where bears can fly and owls could bark like dogs. Gumby set forth on that magical journey and never looked back. He didn’t cry, nor did he worry like a bumble bee. His feet skipped about like a careless twit. Along the way he ran into a flower next to the road. As he passed along side of that flower he heard a strange voice call out. Pass me or smoke me, the flower called out. Without hesitation Gumby stopped in his tracks. Leaping back he looked with a great big smile.

Mr. flower why do you stop me here along the way. Everyone knows the magical place is far far away, and I only been skipping this way not a minute of the day. I can see my home, we are not far away. The flower looked up with a gassy burp and said, “Do you know the Flower Man.” If you want a magical land follow me.

The boy followed the flower into the field. As they came to a stop the flower cried out. Cut a piece of me and smoke it to see. A magical place will be ready for thee. The boy took some of the flower and ate it. Gumby fell over laughing and hallucinating a far far away land. With a evil grin and a quick of his shin the flower man was gone waving good luck little man.

The boy dreamed of a magical land far far away. Never trusting a talking flower unless it gives you directions first to a magical land. Gumby has learned a lesson.

College Is Stupid

I know I'm supposed to be writing about the persuasiveness of the seven articles that we read about going to college, not going to college, Ken Burns (?), and some other s**t; but I'm not going to do that. Reading these articles made me think about all of the pretentiousness that surrounds college and college life. There are Ivy league schools, elite schools, universities, fraternities, dorms, parties, and classes. There's a lot to think about when choosing what college to go to. You must consider location, maybe you want to stay close to home or maybe college is your excuse to get as many miles away from your family as possible. It is vital to think about the connections that will come out of going to a certain school, do you want to go to graduate school? Are there resources at the college that will help you the do so? Is going to a prestegious school impotent to you?

College approaches you with billions of HUGE life decisions right after high school where you spent four years making even more big life decisions, it's all very stressful. Collge can be a determining factor that affects the rest of your life, that's a big deal. It can affect the people you meet, the opportunities you have, your financial success, and the goals you are able to accomplish.

College is wack. Itps one of those things you have to do to make other people happy, that's just how the world works.

I've Kept My Mouth Shut For Too Long

I had seen this blog a few days ago and it has caused me to think a lot about style and how much it means to people. I came across a response post that was written by Rokhsor and I had to go straight to the source. She was responding to a post written by Lhadze who was explaining a little bit about what it meant to be "scene" I had to do some research on what that meant exactly because, frankly, I had no idea. So, I turned to my forever loyal friend, Google, to give me the answer and I came across some information that made me laugh...hard (here it is)...(and here is some more).

Let me start off by saying that this is not a post bashing people that choose to be "scene" or dress in that way, I respect them for dressing in a way that they like and I love that they wear a lot of Hello Kitty, but I feel that it is a little strange that there are rules to being scene.

Being scene seems a little bit like a cult. As I was doing some research on what it means to be "scene" I came across a video that made me sick to my stomach (and I refuse to post a link because I would never want to spread such blatant ignorance). In the video a "scene" girl talks about a few girls at her school who also consider themselves "scene," she goes on to bash them and call them posers. She explains that one of her schoolmates should stop trying to "look scene" because she's Black and she should go listen to rap music and leave true scene kids alone, although that isn't bad enough she then explains that there is a group of girls who cannot possible be scene because they are overweight and ugly.  I was ready to smack the "scene" off of this girl's face. As I clicked on more videos I realized that many "scene kids" think the same way and have no problem voicing their opinion.

I don't understand why so many "scene" people feel so strongly about others having the same style, you should be able to embrace that other people want to be interested in the same things as you. A big part of the "scene" culture is trying to cause a scene (literally) everywhere they go by having a very unique and individualistic style, but when there are rules as to "how to be scene" so that you aren't called a poser it doesn't allow a lot of room to be yourself and like the things you truly have interest in.

I personally think that everyone should be able to shape their style in a way that makes them feel comfortable and confident. I don't think their is much individualism within the "scene" community. But hey, who knows :/